As many as 100 seasonal workers at the National Park Service have not received some back pay after being furloughed during the government shutdown, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times and four people briefed on the matter.
The Interior Department, which oversees the Park Service, owes these workers as much as $200,000 in total, according to the documents and the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation.
The law that Congress passed to reopen the government included a provision that ensured back pay for federal workers who had been furloughed. The official guidance from the Office of Personnel Management states that such pay “must be provided at the earliest date possible after the lapse ends.”
Yet some seasonal workers are still waiting for as much as four weeks of back pay, according to the documents and two of the people briefed on the matter. The situation is predominantly affecting seasonal workers at national parks in the Northern and Central Rockies, which are among the most visited parks in the United States, those two people said.
Representatives for the Park Service, the Interior Department and the Office of Personnel Management did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Seasonal employees, including rangers and maintenance workers, usually join the Park Service in the spring and summer, when parks tend to be crowded. But many stay through the fall “shoulder season” to help parks close campgrounds, clear trails and make other preparations for winter.
Democratic members of Congress and park advocacy groups have urged the Trump administration to pay the employees the money owed.
“Working for national parks has always meant a secure, reliable paycheck,” said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group. “Our park rangers deserve better than this.”
Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, implored Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to compensate these workers in a letter sent on Thursday.
“Not only does withholding pay irreparably harm some of the N.P.S.’s most vulnerable staff at a time of immense difficulty and uncertainty, it discourages future applicants and further strains the N.PS.’s ability to recruit the skilled, committed employees the agency and the American public depend on,” Mr. Bennet wrote.
Senior officials at the Interior Department are expected to discuss whether to grant back pay to these workers during a meeting on Tuesday, according to two of the people briefed on the matter.
In early October, before Congress required retroactive pay for furloughed federal workers, President Trump suggested that the White House might try to deny them back pay.
Mr. Trump told reporters that it “depends on who you’re talking about,” adding that there were “some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”
Maxine Joselow covers climate change and the environment for The Times from Washington.
The post Some Park Rangers Are Still Owed Pay After the Shutdown appeared first on New York Times.
